The Good, Bad and Ugly......of Documentaries in class

The role of watching a Documentary in any class has the Good, Bad and Ugly parts to it.

The Good being that it gives the professor a chance to sit back and either catch up on work or take a nap. Along with giving the professor a break from the monotony of lecture, it also breaks up the monotony of the student's experience of going from lecture to lecture. It gives the student a new perspective on a issue that isn't from a book and just the view point of the author. Chances are, are that the Documentary will have multiple interviews with experts and primary source interviews with people.

The Bad being that, like any class full of students, they will always try and find the easiest way to do a project or least amount of work to put into a class so that they get a acceptable grade. With watching a video in class, what i have observed, is that the instant the lights go out and the movie starts, half of the students heads go down and fall asleep, the other half blankly stare at the screen hoping that this Documentary will possibly have something interesting in it. However, this is always the one student that will be furiously taking notes during the entire Documentary and listening intensely. I am always curious why this student will always do this, and yet, refuses to raise their hand or speak up to participate in class discussions. 

The Ugly thing about watching a video in class is that there is only one real view point, and that is what the director wants us to see. With anything, there is always a bias. I have yet to watch a single documentary that will just lay out the raw numbers with no graphs or 'analysis' of these 'facts'. There has always been an expert that will say what the director wants us to hear and they will use big fancy science words to make their point even more important. There is no rebuttal to the documentaries view point and ideas. 

That, my friends, is why I personally do not like Documentaries or other things of that case. I much rather view the raw data, see how it is taken (to see if there is a bias in how the data was gathered, which is always important to look out for) and to make my own rationally based perception on what is going on in this situation.

I leave you all with a quote from Winston Churchill to ponder when you look back into your history books and data sheets. Churchill said that "History is written by the victor". In the case of bias and skewing the results, always think of that. 

Stay vigilant, Stay awake.